The Rock Pile

by Jim Rodgers

I have been diving this rock pile on a regular basis for about 3 or 4 years and have found quite a few good shells here. The rock pile is about 35 feet wide and 60 feet long. At the upper part the water is about 50 feet and at the lower part it is 60 feet. The top edge of the rock pile is only a few inches deep but as it nears the bottom edge it gets close to 8 feet deep. We started working it at the lower ledge, moving every single rock, looking at each one very closely, from the front to the back of us. Sometimes after we had proceeded into the rock pile, we started using a laundry basket to put the rocks in and then lifting them out of the hole and piling them up again behind us. On several of the larger boulders I have even taken a small Toyota car jack to move them. (The jack was ruined in the process.) We progressed all of the way through the length of the rock pile and then we would wait awhile and then start over. Each time we started over, it looks like no one else has ever been in the area because there is live sponge like material all over the rocks and also more shells. We are on our third trip thru the rock pile and I have my third and fourth dive partners with me. Leo Kempczenski was the first one with whom I dived here and he took many good shells. He now resides in the states. My second dive partner, Jim Hoffmark is now in Santee California finishing up his college studies. My current dive parther, Richard Salisbury and Paul Merrill and I are now finding a few shells that were never found here before. (At the time of this printing, Richard is on his way to Hawaii and Paul is in Korea). I will try to list a few of the shells that I have taken out of the rock pile. I have taken at least one of every type of shell that any of my other dive partners have taken plus a few that they haven't taken. A partial list of some of the shells are as follow. The author and date are not listed because of the shortage of time and space. Murex laqueatus, Murex guamensis, Murex lacineatus, Murex triqueator, Murex tripterus, Strombus wilsoni, Strombus haemostoma, Strombus microurceus, Conus legatus, Conus cylindricus, Conus luteus, Conus boeticus, Conus elder (baby G.O.), Conus glans, Cypraea becki, Cypraea labrolineata, Cypraea scurra, Cypraea dillwyni, Cypraea mariae, Cypraea margarita, Cypraea globulus, Distortio pusilla, several types of pectens and many, many mitra. One interesting thought about moving all the rocks around by man is that it didn't seem to bother the environment in the least, but we have had one large typhoon since we stopped working the rock pile and it has changed it. We made a dive there about two months after the typhoon and the rocks were really changed. It seems that the large wave action was rolling the rocks around and at the time of that dive, the rocks didn't have much growth on them and there were very few live shells. This dive took place about a year ago and since then we have made a dive there to what it looks like and it is beginning to like like it did the first time we dived it.